New team builds relationships with key stakeholders

The new Public Affairs team is helping the whole of EEAST work closely with key people outside of our organisation and especially those representing the public, such as Health Overview and Scrutiny Committees (HOSCs).

The team is building relationships with these key stakeholders, coordinating our scrutiny activities and looking closely at the organisation’s engagement with MPs, councillors and other key stakeholders.

The creation of a new team within the Chief Executive’s Office has been prompted by the Trust’s increased media profile and the need to bring a more strategic and co-ordinated approach to key relationships,

Their first task has been streamlining the Trust’s work in this area to remove duplication and provide a point of access for stakeholders seeking to work with the Trust.

Since being started last year, the Public Affairs team has:

established regular online briefings with the chief executive, the chair and other senior management for the 60+ MPs which represent residents across the EEAST region and a regular stakeholder newsletter
began building a comprehensive stakeholder database that supports the organisation’s key priorities (this is ongoing and we are working our way around the organisation so might be coming to talk to you soon)
mapped all of the HOSCs to which the organisation is accountable, introduced ourselves to the relevant officers and produced a template report structure for HOSCs
started to build a repository of organisational information about our interactions with MPs

The Public Affairs team are:

Oliver Rogers – Head of the Chief Executive’s Office and Public Affairs

Oliver joins the East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust after 10 months spent working on communications as part of the Cabinet Office team for the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. He’s from Essex and has worked across East Anglia for most of his career, although more recently he’s been based in Westminster. Prior to joining Cabinet Office, he worked for a year and a half at the Ministry of Justice on external communications for the Legal Aid Agency. Then before 2019, he worked as a press officer for Defra working on wildlife and the environment. As part of his role at Defra he worked on communications for the 2018 Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference and also planned media and promotion for the release of beavers and white-tailed eagles back into the English countryside. In this role he worked on key projects supporting Michael Gove during his time as Environment Secretary and Tony Juniper at the start of his period as Chair of Natural England. Before joining the Civil Service in 2017, he worked for Northumbrian Water Group (owners of Essex & Suffolk Water) as a press officer for six years. Between 2002 and 2011 he was a BBC regional journalist in the East of England, which included a stint on Look East. He is a Trustee of the Thames Chase Trust and Community Forest in Upminster.

Chris Lewis – Public Affairs Officer (interim)
Has worked with EEAST’s communications team since 2018. In addition to having a master’s degree in public policy, he has 30 year’s experience of journalism and communications roles with local authorities and not-for-profit organisations around the country.

Oliver Rogers said: “One of the most important parts of this team will be to make sure MPs and other bodies representing the public get a consistent and appropriate response when they approach any part of our organisation.
So, if anyone is approached by their local MP or any of the boards and committees run by local government around our region, please contact us on PublicAffair@EastAmb.nhs.uk so that we can support and provide a response.”

Published 22nd March 2022